Archetype Writing Blog

This time I was responsible for choosing the blog chain topic. Kate (who comes before me in the chain) just did a great wrap up of our last chain , on confidence. Michelle  (who comes after me in the chain) will be the next to tackle the questions I've chosen:

Angst (n.) (ängkst)
Everyone talks about angst-ridden creative people, so I looked up the definition of the word “angst” to get myself going. (I normally hate when people include definitions — hello, I can use a dictionary — but I’m making an exception so you and I both know what the heck we mean when we say “angst.”) The word is German and refers to an “A feeling of anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression .” Fanfic writers use the word to help categorize some forms of fanfic: “Putting the characters and by extension the readers through deep emotional and possibly physical pain .”

Mental Illness
Some people take the angst idea a step farther. They believe that writers need to be at least a little touched by madness. Interestingly, there is a strong positive correlation between bipolar disorder (aka manic depression) and creativity . According to Frederick Goodwin and Kay Redfield Jamison, both giants in the study of bipolar disorder:

It is counterintuitive that such a destructive illness could be associated with imagination or great works of art. Yet the perceived association is a persistent cultural belief and one that is backed by data from many studies… The argument is not that manic-depressive illness and its related temperaments are essential to creative work; clearly they are not. Nor do we argue that most people who have bipolar or recurrent depressive illness are creative; they are not. The argument is, rather, that a disproportionate number of eminent writers and artists have suffered from bipolar spectrum disorders and that, under some circumstances, creativity can be facilitated by such disorders.

From Michelangelo and Jackson Pollock to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley, from Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan to Ernest Hemingway and Stephen King, depression or bipolar illness is disproportionately common in creative geniuses.

Is Angst Necessary?
Now, if bipolar disorder and depression are common in creative geniuses, and angst is a description of how people with those disorders often feel, does that mean angst is necessary to the creative process?

Well…let’s see what the others in the blog chain think.

Looking at the psychological research…no. Interestingly, people who are creative have more in common with people who are bipolar than they do with “normal” people, but the commonalities lie not necessarily in mood disturbances, but rather in idiosyncratic thinking patterns, in enthusiasm and passion for their art, in how easily they can produce new and strange ideas. In many cases, people who are bipolar and creative are better able to express themselves creatively when they are being appropriately treated for their disorders.

Part of what makes being creative with a mental illness so difficult is the behaviors that result. Alcoholism is found in over 50% of the people with bipolar disorder. Drug abuse is also extremely high. Periods of despair can be so intense that the individual can hardly get out of bed, let alone create something. And of course the rate of suicide and suicide attempts is much higher than in creative people who aren’t also struggling with a mental illness.

The way I think of it is like this — there is an overlap between “creative” genes and “bipolar/depressive” genes. And while some people, like Kurt Cobain, feel much more creative when they’re in the manic phase of bipolar disorder, they may also be less coherent (“Smells Like Teen Spirit” lyrics, anyone?), and they also have to deal with the crash of depression (Cobain committed suicide). Research also suggests that over time depressive/bipolar illnesses gnaw away at creativity. In a study done with children , “we found a negative correlation of illness duration with…creativity ; the longer the children were sick, the less creative they were.” So overall, the illness becomes a hindrance to creativity, rather than a help.

Angst vs. Soul
An ex of mine was an amazing artist, technically. He could reproduce anything he saw, often without ever lifting the pencil. I’ve never seen someone who could draw like he could without ever needing to erase. He didn’t need to work the image over and over from rough to smooth — he just produced an immaculate image the first time.

He spoke at one point to some galleries about displaying his work, but he was turned down. One director was kind enough to give him some feedback. She told him something was “missing” from his work.

He thought it was angst. But it wasn’t. (He got to share mine, and it didn’t affect his art at all. I checked.) What he was missing was soul.

So I don’t think it’s angst that we all need to produce good stuff. It’s soul.

My Angst
So that brings us to me. Do I need angst to produce good work? I honestly don’t know, because precocious creative works started around the same time my angst found me. So I’m really curious about what the others in the blog chain are going to say.

I do have an emotional state that I think I write in better than any other (besides flow, of course). I call it “melancholy.” It’s a calm, quiet state that for some reason makes it easier to sink into a creative state. But maybe the reason that’s helpful is that I enjoy writing fiction with “angst” in it.

I have met people who become extremely distraught about putting their characters through a tale of angst. Some cry, some sink into a depression, some feel guilty. I’m not sure why they write it if they feel that way. (The only time I sink into a depression as a result of writing is when I finish a novel — I always worry I won’t be able to write another one!) For me, writing angst is like an outlet for my own. If I’ve got it, why not plumb it for material?

This entry is courtesy of guest blogger Sarah-Jayne Gratton, PhD.

It’s that time of the year again when witches, ghosts and ghouls roam the streets in search of candy. No longer just a throwback to the Celtic Festival of Samhain, where the end of the Celtic year was thought to be associated with death. Today Halloween means holiday--a time for dressing up, having fun, eating candy and watching scary movies!

And it’s not just for the kids. There’s something so timelessly magical in the golden colors of fall that’s annually reflected in the glowing flames of our Jack O’Lantern smiles. Rather than feeling a creepy chill in the air, instead, many of us today associate a sense of warmth and togetherness with the date October 31st. The past associations with all things evil have today been replaced by the amusing notion of ‘a good scare’ , meaning that it’s time once again to party in ‘Halloweenland’.

The Roots of our Rituals
The commercial exploitation of Halloween didn’t begin until the 20th century for the most part and mass-produced Halloween costumes didn’t make their appearance until the 1950s, when ‘trick-or-treating’ became firmly embedded in the rituals of the holiday.

The mask-like images associated with Halloween, like the holiday itself, also have their roots in Celtic practices and likewise, their place in the modern psychology of the event. In fact, the ritual of putting on a mask to become someone else outside of ourselves is something that we have truly embraced in western society, not just as a means of entertainment, but as a means of escape.

Fear as a Release
“The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”  - Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

Modern life has never been so easy - or so stressful. The dichotomy presented by advances in technology is all around us; supposedly developed to make our lives easier, psychological research suggests that they can create a mental prison of inescapable responsibility. With this in mind, the notion of a faceless boogeyman stalking us has never been more readily embraced by audiences, especially as it may well be linked to these increasingly common feelings of insecurity and disillusionment that many of us feel in the twenty-first century.

In short, there is no escape from the cell phones, the computers, the pagers and of course the net - in cyberspace everyone can hear you scream! Unconsciously, many of us may seek out a psychological release though the adrenalin-infused horror movies we choose to obsess about at this time of year. Following this release, at the movies end, and as a result of all that adrenalin being pumped through our bodies, we often experience a similarly positive physiological response, where feelings of giddiness, euphoria and later relaxation weave their addictive charm and keep us coming back for more.

The Future
As far as the future of Halloween is concerned, we can be fairly certain that its popularity will continue to grow as more and more cultures embrace its holiday and commercial appeal. In fact, with more articles than ever being written about it, more stores than ever stocking up on cards, candies and costumes in readiness for it and the television and movie studios all looking to give us the ‘fright of our lives’ on the night, it seems that the ritual of ‘selling our souls’ to the psychological motivators that keep the Halloween wheels turning may just be good for us after all.

Dr Sarah-Jayne Gratton has a PhD in Psychology and an Advanced Diploma in Psychotherapy and Hypnotherapy. She is the author of Marketing Wireless Products (Butterworth Heinemann, 2004) and her work has been published in a number of newspapers and magazines.

Blog chain time again!  This time, the question was posed by Kate Karyus Quinn, who asked

Let me start with the confidence.  When I've written something, and the words have just flowed, I sometimes feel like I'm looking down on the Seventh Day, basking in the warmth of my creation and proclaiming, It Is Good.  I'll feel like I've captured the emotion and the angst; or the flavor, color, and texture of the world I envisioned.  The characters will be as real as Real People to me. I'll feel that glow in my chest: Of course I'm a writer.  This is something I was meant to do.

Now, as a psychologist, I believe it's not only okay, it's healthy to be able to say to yourself, "I did a good job on that." "I'm a good writer." You don't have to announce it to the world (in fact, you probably shouldn't!), but you're healthier if you have a secret little place inside with a nice big refrigerator to put up your accomplishments, and where you can nod and pat yourself on the back and think, I Did Good.  I even have lots of professional terms to make that all sound more authoritative, like self-esteem, self-efficacy, and adequate mirroring on the Grandiose Pole.  But I'm going to skip all that for right now.

If feeling good about what you'd written was as far as any of this went, all would be well.  But so many of us have this urge, this drive, this need to get published.  And what is that all about anyways?  Few people make money publishing.  It's cool, but unless you're Stephenie Meyer or JK Rowling or whoever this week's Hot Writer is, it's a passing cool that others soon forget.  Getting published doesn't make you beautiful or thin or get you a Happily Ever After with whichever celebrity you drool over most.

Yet the need remains. So you sweat blood over a query and open a vein to get the synopsis right and then, hoping, praying, believing you've got something others will love, you start sending your work out to others.

Some writers start with crit buddies, some jump straight to agents and publishers; some do both simultaneously.  And most soon discover that not everyone else thinks their work is so good.

According to Robert Heinlein, that's where a lot of people quit.  In fact, he believed that only half the writers who actually put pen to paper (or words to screen) and finish what they start have the guts to submit to agents and publishers.

Writers...are inordinately fond of their brainchildren.  They would rather see their firstborn child ravaged by wolves than suffer the pain of having a manuscript rejected.  So instead they [only] read their manuscripts aloud to spouses and long-suffering friends.

But you're not satisfied to believe the friends and family who swear your work is fantastic -- you have to send your work out to people outside that little circle.  And as the crits roll in and the rejections pile up, you look at your work with fresh eyes, and you realize it's miserable.  It's embarrassingly horrible.  You're embarrassingly horrible, and stupid besides to ever have believed someone else might be interested in the ridiculous stories you make up in your head.

Lather, rinse, repeat.  Crit after crit, rejection letter after rejection letter.

Some throw in the towel right away.  "The world just isn't ready for my material," they sniff, or they decide that all agents are self-important assholes who wouldn't know a good story if it ran them over.  There are even websites that exist for the purpose of ranting about your rejections and throwing mud back at the agents who sent them.  (Who are, by the way, human beings who are just doing their jobs as best they can.  But that's another blog post.)

Other writers are worn down over weeks, months, or years of querying.  Or by disapproving relatives.  Or by savage critique "buddies."  The rejection hurts.  A lot.

But some always manage to drag themselves out of the dirt, brush themselves off, and try again.  Just like they need to write, they need to keep trying to get published.

"Writing is a calling," says editor Betsy Lerner.  "If the call subsides, so be it. [But] when writers say they have no choice, what they mean is: Everything in the world conspired to make me quit, but I kept going."  She goes on:

Many writers have gathered their marbles and gone home for far less cause. It takes a supreme talent and fierce self-belief to write in the face of such acrimony... If the high wire is for you, if the spotlight is for you, if you believe that everyone should pay attention to you and your work, then you must stay focused.  Ambivalence will never get you anywhere.

What it comes down to, I've read over and over again, is determination in the face of all that feedback, all those rejections.  A willingness to learn, of course, but also determination to overcome and succeed:

• The degree of one's perseverance is the best predictor of success - Betsy Lerner
• In all manner of pursuits there's a tendency to overesimate brilliance and underestimate persistence.  Talent is common.  Determination is rare. -Ralph Keyes
• [The authors of the Chicken Soup books] instinctively understood that all those rejections were simply an uncomfortable part of the process that would eventually get them where they wanted to be. - literary agent Jeff Herman
• [Author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken] Kesey  was not even remotely the best writer in class [at the writing program at Stanford], but he was maniacally determined. - Classmate and writer Thomas McGuane
• Talent is extremely common.  What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of a writer - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

So where do you find the determination?  According to Keyes, you have to hate the idea of being ignored, of never being read, more than you hate the pain of rejection. "It is some combination of ability and ego," adds Lerner, "desire and discipline, that produces good work." She continues: 

A writer's success or faltering can usually be traced to some abundance or deficit of those elements.  Some of the most gifted writers I've worked with were also the most self-sabotaging.  Lack of discipline, desire for fame, and depression often thwart those whose talents appear most fertile, while those who struggle with every line persevere regardless.

In many ways, learning to deal with rejection from agents and publishers is just the first step.  Because when you do manage to get published, you will have to deal with critics, the bloodthirsty pirahna in the sea of your success.  People who have sudden, overwhelming success, are not prepared for it.  And that may topple them and keep them from producing good work going forward.  So keep running that gauntlet, and be proud of your calluses and scars, because they mean you believed in yourself enough to keep going.

Don't forget to check out Kate's post before mine -- it's a joy to read! And then hop over to Michelle McLean's blog and see how she manages that delicate balance between too much and too little confidence!

• New Q&A: Leaving Delusions Behind: What is the motivation for a delusional person to get better when their delusional world is so much more pleasurable than their real one?
• New Jargon Terms: Decompensation, Conversion Disorder, Pathologize, Hysteria (outdated term)
• Visual Prompts updated
• Tapping Into Emotional Hot Buttons by Penny Sansevieri
• Borderline Personality Disorder by Arthur Buchanan 

Our previous chain was tied up with a bow by HL Dyer, so be sure to check out her Summary/Wrap-Up for Creating Story Worlds.

So back to the current chain question.  After Mary shared her neat-freak habits and took us on the magnificent world adventures of her writing buddy, a fluffy lamb named Beeyaaa (that's 2 e's and 3 a's).

Then Kate shared her unusual sandwich-eating tendencies, including her issues with tomatoes...which  makes her wonder if she might not have a touch of OCD.  She also showed us her writing space, which is remarkably dangerous given some Ikea shelves that loom over her head, just waiting to toss their contents onto her head.

So now it's my turn.  Yikes!

My quirkiest writing habit is that I like to write longhand when I get stuck.  I find the cursor blinking so patiently at me on a blank screen to be more mocking than patient.  But blank paper I find comforting.  I have notebooks filled with longhand notes around my writing areas.  If I don't have the notebook handy, I write on whatever I do and staple it in later.  I used to leave everything loose, but I'm kind of a klutz, and after you've dropped something like that a few times...well, a stapler becomes your friend.

When I edit, I often edit in longhand, and I'm very particular about using multiple colors of FELT TIP pens.  Pilot Razorpoints are nice.
 
It is very difficult to find felt-tip pens these days.  Everything has gone rollerball.  This upsets me, because I want FELT TIP pens. And you can't buy those things in OfficeMax anymore.  No, you have to go to an art supply store.  I'm very upset about the dearth of felt-tip pens in my OfficeMax.

Now, before you decide I'm OCD with my little felt-tip pen obsession, I think you should probably see my desk.


This is what my desk looks like when it's mostly CLEAN.  It's often a couple feet deep.  And this is an ongoing problem.  My desk at work is even worse. Students walk in and laugh. I have these great Post-It notes that say "My desk, my mess, my business." This was the best representation I could find since I'm not at work to scan them:



On a slightly different note, when people say "books to help you write better stories," I think of something a little different than the average writer:



Now, let's say you had a character named...oh, let's make her named Kate. *wink* And Kate thought she had OCD.  If you used one of those regular writer's books, you'd be in big trouble.  But I can just grab my DSM-IV there and check out whether the symptoms might show up if she...hm...if she had strange sandwich-eating habits, for example.


And I can also see in the Differential Diagnosis section the things she might have besides OCD.  Like...oh, hypochondria.  (Just kidding, Kate.)

So on to the illustrious Michelle McLean, who is going to share her quirky writing habits with you!

Readers! Have your own quirky writing habits? Don’t forget to post your own comment before you go!

My friend (and fellow blog chain member) Abi tagged me, and that means means that I’m supposed to answer the questions that were asked of her when she got tagged.

4 goals I have in the next 5 years:
1. Sell my nonfiction book -- my wonderful agent, Kate Epstein, is currently submitting it
2. Land a fiction agent
3. Sell a fiction book with the help of said agent.
4. See both books on the bookshelves and listed on Amazon!

4 places I will visit someday:
1. The Grand Canyon
2. The Louvre
3. Hawaii
4. Tuscany

4 of my favorite foods:
1. Barnum & Bailey animal crackers
2. Uno's Chicago deep dish pizza
3. Graeter's ice cream
4. Wendys!

4 jobs I've had:
1. graphic designer
2. webmaster
3. psychotherapist
4. professor

2 places I've lived:
1. Toronto
2. Pittsburgh

2 places I'd like to live:
1. San Diego
2. ?

4 things I'd do with my spare time (if I had any):
1. photomanipulations
2. draw
3. sew
4. write

Now, I'm supposed to tag some folks, but everyone in my blog chain has been tagged already (I think).  So, dear reader, you need to help me out.  Consider yourself tagged!  Drop me a comment and let me know you decided to do me the honor (and so I can tell my blog chain friends I'm cool). ;-)

Yes, you have to try Wordle.  Thanks to HL Dyer, so did Elana and I.  I threw in a passage from a story and came up with the following (which you can also see in the Wordle Gallery)

Honestly, I took one look at this and thought Uh-Oh.  Kate Karyus Quinn, who is the blogger before me, had the same reaction I did, but that's okay, because some questions are going to be harder for some people.  And we can learn things from that, too.

Fortunately for my dilemma, since I'm up now, HL Dyer, who started this chain, and Michelle McLean, who followed her, had really interesting answers that got the little cogs in my brain moving.  I'm looking forward to Sandra's answer (she's the blogger after me this time), and all the posts of all my other blog chain buddies (see list to your left)!  Definitely be sure not to miss Mary Lindsey's -- she talks about the importance of authenticity with examples that will make your mouth drop open!

What makes my answer different from everyone's so far is that I write science fiction and fantasy. So rather than examining the past for factual details, I have to make up alternate worlds. And the most important thing I do when I build a world for my stories is figure out the "rules," or perhaps more accurately, the laws.

By laws, I mean the factual kind that recur in nature. You can jump upwards as many times as you want to, but as long as you’re dealing with a g of gravity, you will always come back down. You can do your darndest to stop the ocean tides, but as long as the earth keeps spinning and the moon keeps pulling, there will be tides.

The same thing has to happen with magic. There must be laws to any magical universe, and to create them, a writer must ask herself things like

• Who can use magic and who can’t? Only people who are trained? Only people who have certain genes? Only people of a certain gender or race or culture? Why only those people? Must the power be awakened, or is it there from birth?
• What is magic? Where does it come from? Is it a force of nature, neither good nor evil, or is it a spiritual or eschatological kind of power only angels or demons can grant?
• How is magic used? Must the user cast spells, or is magic more of a generalized energy? Must he rely on herbs, or blood, or eye of newt, or are spell components obsolete in your world? Are sigils, runes, or incantations used?
• What price must be paid? If you fight gravity by jumping, eventually you’re going to wear yourself out. That’s the price. So what happens when one uses magic? And are the consequences the same for any kind of magic, or do they vary with the kind of spell?
• What are the limits on magic? If your character can do anything and everything, there’s no tension in the story, so what can’t she do with magic?
• Are there different types of magicians with specialized powers -- like necromancers and alchemists and prophets -- or are they all the same?

The answers can’t be random, either. They have to make sense, just like the laws of our universe do. And you can’t be whimsically changing them because your character suddenly needs to be able to do this or that kind of magic.


Readers! I’m interested in your thoughts on story-world building. Don’t forget to post your own comment before you go!

I belong to a couple of writers' communities, and sometimes writers have...well, technical problems with their manuscripts.  For example, they need to be able to change something throughout the manuscript and it's just not working.  So, since I am a geek, I decided to start logging the problems and solutions so other writers could use them too.  The new section, called Technology for Writers, is in Archetype Writing's Resources area.

The topic for the blog chain this time, started by the lovely Leah Clifford, is

Be sure to check out Kate's response (she's the blogger before me in the chain) and Michelle's response (she's the blogger after me in the chain) as well as the responses of the other bloggers in the chain -- they're listed to your left.

Are your characters real people to you?

Absolutely.

And sometimes I tie my brain in a pretzel thinking about the nature of reality, and -- sparing you the philosophical Rube Goldberg machine -- what I end up with is, Do I have any proof that they're not real, somewhere, somehow? 

Well...no.

I mean, it often feels like I'm just writing about what's happening somewhere else, because I know when I've got it "right" and I know when I've got it "wrong."  (Though I don't always know how to fix it when I've got it wrong.  I always feel like I need to listen more carefully.)

Other writers have that same experience, though they might not describe it in the same way I have.  They refer to it as "automatic writing" or as "listening to the Muse" or (if they're psychologically minded) as "flow."

How much do you really know about them?

A lot, though I don't learn it all at once. 

Some writers' books and magazines encourage you to learn all the mundane details about your characters, but I don't really care what kinds of grades my characters got in high school or what their exact weight is or every last job they've ever held.  I focus on personality characteristics, fears, terrible secrets, and especially on little details that don't seem to fit the rest of what I know about them. 

For example, I have a character who's hotheaded, blunt, and prefers people to be a little afraid of him.  So when I learned that he was bilingual, a practicing Catholic, and adores his cat, I was intrigued.  Learning about why the face he presents to the world is so different from who he is underneath was important, not only so I could write him "accurately," but also because it drove the plot foward.

I tend to learn so much about my characters that I have to write a lot of it down somewhere so I don't forget, but also so I don't accidentally "contaminate" my characters with how I would do things.  Here's a piece of one of my novels' character sheets (sorry it's ugly, SnagIt tries to create a small file).  I used the RPRF descriptions to help myself make the list of personality qualities in the middle column.  (Read more about how to use it for your own stories here.)  I have also been known to give my characters personality tests.

To me, one of the most intriguing things about learning about characters is how much I learn about myself while I'm doing it.  After all, even if it feels like I'm channeling something from outside myself, I know that in reality the stories come from somewhere inside of me.

And each character reflects a different aspect of my personality.  Carl Jung would have said that only by learning about and accepting that each of those characters is part of the whole self can we learn who we really are.  In other words, your hero must confront his dark side, but to create a truly dark villain, you must delve into your own dark side.  So your villain reflects your own darkness.  Likewise, your hero(ine)'s love interest is likely to be based on your own idea of what's attractive.  So the love interest acts as your hero(ine)'s anima or animus, but is also a reflection of your own.



Narrative therapy theory argues that we create our own reality with the stories we tell about our lives.  When we tell stories, we flavor them with our own perspectives.  If I am in a car accident, when I tell it to my friends, I don't focus on how fast the cars were going, the angle of impact, or the amount of debris on the road.  I focus on how I felt and the role I played.  I might portray myself as a victim, or as unfairly accused of doing wrong, or even as a hero for helping the people in the other car afterwards.  The way I tell my story becomes my reality.

I believe that the stories we tell as writers both reflect our realities and help form them, too.  So as a writer, ask yourself what kinds of characters you like to create, and what (possibly hidden) aspects of yourself make those kinds of characters so compelling for you?

You might be surprised what you learn about yourself.  And your willingness to dig around in your own subconscious may reveal even more about your characters, as well!

Added some fresh articles and updated the Deviant Art Prompts!

• What Will Your Character Do When Disaster Strikes? by Carolyn Kaufman
• Playing Chicken With Your Story by Holly Lisle
• 8 Keys to a Successful Author Website by Karin Bilich

You should also check out RallyStorm, a new website by the creator of the wonderful QueryTracker.  On RallyStorm, writers can set up private critique forums for their readers.  And QueryTracker, of course, lets you track queries sent to agents, as well as share information with other writers about agents.

Our blog chain is picking up new members, which is really exciting. Rather than list them all here, I'm going to direct you to the blogroll column to your left, where new blogs are still appearing!

Though the genres topic was tough for a lot of people (including me), Elana's wonderful question has nearly doubled our blog chain!

The question: Where do you get your ideas?

Now, I took one look at that and started looking forward to everyone else's answers, because I feel like I don't have enough ideas. (Which is kind of ironic considering that Archetype Writing has a whole Muse section...or maybe you know now why it does.)

The truth is that I have plenty of things that catch my attention, it's just knowing what to do with them.

So...I collect ideas kind of like burrs. Some things just stick to me.

Sometimes it's a line from a song, like HL Dyer and Mary have experienced.

For example, I love that bleak line from Bush's Machinehead: If I had it all again, I'd change it all.

That just seized my imagination and wouldn't let go. I can't tell you what the rest of the song's lyrics are, but boy, that line...

Especially because I tend to think of disasters as learning experiences, I was intrigued by the idea of an outcome so bad a character would give anything to start over. By the idea that someone would be willing to take any outcome but the one he got.

I ended up with a character so desperate to do the right thing that he makes all the wrong choices. Eventually he finds himself responsible for the deaths of those closest to him, for the fall of his nation, and for lifting his worst enemy into power. And that's where things get interesting, because without anything left to lose he really becomes dangerous. (And he's the good guy!)

Sometimes the idea comes from another story. One of my novels was born of a trailer for a movie called The Seventh Sign. To this day, I have not seen the movie, nor do I really know what it's about, but the first time I saw the trailer, something about the concept stuck. I liked the idea of a group of people coming together to try to stop an apocalypse. In my characters' situation, they fail. Miserably. And then they have to destroy what they've unleashed.

(I just looked at the Wikipedia entry for the movie. Definitely not what I came up with. My story's high fantasy. :-)

Sometimes I start with a character. Often I'm intrigued by movie characters. I really liked Ioan Gruffudd's Lancelot in 2004's King Arthur. (For the auditory among us, his last name is pronounced Griffith.) What makes the character especially interesting to me is that Gruffudd hasn't played anyone else like him. (Like, could Mr. Fantastic be any more of a polar opposite?) At one point in the movie Guenevere asks Lancelot if he's thought about taking a wife and having children, and he responds that he's killed too many men to have the right to sons of his own. And that stuck. So I have a WIP with a character kind of like Gruffudd's Lancelot, but in a totally different context, with a different backstory...it's more the archetype of the character I liked, and Gruffudd's unique spin made it stick.

Sometimes what sticks is a character's plight from a novel I've already finished. It can be hard to tie off all the loose ends, and I don't like Disney-happy endings, because that's not what real life is like. Twice I've had a character who drew the short straw in endings, and I've had to go back and write a new novel for him.

The first time the character lost his family, didn't get the girl, and didn't learn to use the magic he craved. So I wondered...what happened next for him, after he walked away from everyone else's happy ending with nothing for himself?

The second time it happened the character got to be part of everyone else's happy ending, but he had posttraumatic stress disorder, and that doesn't just go away. Since he had gone from second-in-charge to first-in-charge of an entire nation, I figured there were some interesting bumps in the road ahead of him. I was right.

Sometimes something in my own life just has a lot of emotional weight, and I need somewhere to put it, so the problem or experience finds its way into a character's life.

Whenever something sticks, I try to put it away in a notebook where it will stay safe. But some things don't stay in the notebook. A little corner of my brain keeps turning them over, trying out different possibilities, until finally I'm compelled to start writing.

Recently, I started reading Dennis Palumbo's Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within. The back of the book says Palumbo is a licensed psychotherapist, but I sure wouldn't want him as my therapist.

• Using Body Language in Writing by JJ Cooper: Former military interrogator JJ Cooper explains why body language is important to writers.
• Does Your Novel Have a Heartbeat?, How to Find Your Novel's Pulse, and Burying Your Novel's Message by full-time novelist Holly Lisle.
• Updated Visual Prompts from DeviantArt

Yeah, so I got bored with the old template. Google needs some spiffy new templates, IMHO, but nobody actually asked me.

Remember that great QueryTracker.net site I told you about? Some of the members decided to do a writing-themed blog chain, and since I never use my blog properly, I figured this might help me out.

Ideally, you follow the chain and visit the other posters' entries. Since I'm the second one to brave this first go-round, that means you should stop by the blog before mine and the blog after mine, and so on. (You can also use the Blogroll links to your right.)

On to the topic at hand: writing methods.

When I was about 11 years old, I had an English book that contained blurbs describing different novels. For some strange reason, it wasn't clear what the names of the books in question were.

I happened upon one blurb that I found particularly intriguing, and because I couldn't figure out what the book was, I decided to write my own. I'm too embarrassed to tell you what it was called, but I wrote it in bubbly blue ballpoint letters. I still have it somewhere, I'm pretty sure. If I weren't too embarrassed to show it to you, I'd dig it out and post some of it here.

After that, a friend and I decided we were going to write a novel together. We didn't get all that far before she decided she had better things to do. Like chase boys. I was a late bloomer, so the boys weren't interested in me. So I kept writing.

Writing became my haven, and all of my teenage angst went not into a journal, but into the lives of these characters who had become as real to me as real people.

I wrote my first few novels in spiral-bound notebooks. In blue (and often black) ballpoint pen. And I didn't just write, I edited the living you-know-what out of them. Since I believe that the brilliance is 90% in the editing, that's important.



Later I graduated to a word processor, and finally to a computer.

So what kept me writing?

I couldn't not write. In some ways being able to lose myself in my stories was asylum from my problems. And now, even though I don't have the same problems (mostly), I still feel compelled to write. It keeps me sane, which is sayin' something.

If I'm not writing something new, I work on old stories that need work. That disaster I posted above has an idea worth saving in it, so from time to time I go back and write a little bit more of a new novel stemming from that gem. (I think I just mixed my metaphors in a seriously bad way.)

I write mostly on the computer, though I find when I get stuck the best thing to do is pull out the old spiral-bound notebook and work there. Sometimes I only write a few pages that way; sometimes I end up with scene after scene written longhand.

For a long time, as I was learning to write, I'd note lines and paragraphs in books I was reading that really moved me. I'd fold the page down so I could find it later, then copy it into a new notebook to be analyzed at length. I never really picked up anyone else's style, but it did help me understand how the people I admired did what they did. If I come across something truly astounding now, I do the very same thing. (I also do it for factoids I find intriguing.)

I work on my writing almost every day. I climb into bed with my laptop and work for however long the muse whispers in my ear...and often when she's nowhere in sight. People who are close to me know that "I'm going to bed" doesn't mean I'll be sleeping anytime soon.

Some days I don't feel like writing, and I have to admit that this wireless internet thing hasn't been much help...but I still do it.

Fortunately, it's fairly easy for me to get into a flow state , which makes me want to write more. Based on the research Susan K. Perry did in Writing in Flow: Keys to Enhanced Creativity, setting aside writing time and simply sticking with it makes reaching flow easier over time.

When I'm working on a new story, my brain is constantly working in the background. If I have a flash of what should happen next, or even a line some character must say, I grab the closest scrap of paper and writing utensil and scribble it down. Even if I'm in the car. Or the shower.

Fortunately, I can read my own handwriting.



Tag, Elana, you're it!

New article: Gathering Information from Characters: Types of Questions
Summary: Former military interrogator JJ Cooper teaches you how to construct questions that get the answers you want from your characters!

New Article: The 5-Step Secret To Great Fiction
Summary: Stephen King says he starts his novels with a "What if?" question. And I have heard others say they just saw an image in their mind, or had a persistent sentence knocking on the inside of their brains, and they just followed that to where it lead them. And while their insight and tutelage is invaluable, when I was a budding writer it left me with another question: What's next?